


Fairytales or Post IX Cathartic Writing [working title]

by MedusaSterling



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fairytale logics might apply, Fix-It, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Ghosts, How to cramm two people into an X-Wing, Kinda, Movie: Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, Spoilers, Spoilers for The Rise of Skywalker, Star Wars is a Fairytale in Space and I treat it as such, The Rise of Skywalker Fix-it, True Love's Kiss, X-Wing shenanigans, X-Wing(s), cathartic writing, fairytale, sorta - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-02-26 19:27:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,841
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21853831
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MedusaSterling/pseuds/MedusaSterling
Summary: Here be spoilers, ye be warned.Exactly as the title & tags say. Cathartic Fix-Its for the ending of TRoS.More chapters to come as I work through that ending.Edit: Why did nobody tell me I had a typo in the title? Eh, it's fixed now...
Relationships: Other Relationship Tags to Be Added, Rey/Ben Solo | Kylo Ren
Comments: 51
Kudos: 107





	1. Fairytale

**Author's Note:**

> This is not:  
> \- beta read  
> \- really thought through  
> \- particularly good
> 
> And I don't care. I wrote most of this on the bus ride home from the movie theatre. 
> 
> Whoever came up with that ending should really look up the definition of the word 'Fairytale'...

The kiss is everything Rey had never dared imagine it would be. It transcends the mere physical meeting of lips. It is a meeting of souls in an essential way. Like binary stars reaching out across the void between them in the violent passion that were solar flares. 

_In another world, she would now be forced to watch the man that was so much a part of her fade into the force, condemned to inaction. In another world, she would end up alone at a long abandoned moisture farm on a desert planet and take up the name that had been so intrinsically tied to the fate of the galaxy for almost a century. In another world she would look at the setting of the twin suns with a heavy heart, watch the binary stars, the eternal lovers, lay down for the night to rise again at a new dawn, together. And as the ink would dry in the history books, the Skywalkers and the Jedi would fade away, their purpose fulfilled, their story told._

_But this is not that story. This is a fairytale._

_And so…_

When Ben starts to feel less tangent under her hands, Rey is shocked out of the reverence of the intangible moment and brought firmly back to the here and now. 

"No" the almost breathless word is as much exclamation of denial as it is a feeble attempt at a command, more plea than measure of authority, - though to whom, she wouldn't be able to say. 

"No" she repeats again, firmer. And again. 

_No_. 

Until her voice reverberates through the room and through the force, the tide of power in her like the storm pitched sea during their battle on the fallen Death Star. 

"It's okay" he seems to say, though words fail him, the intent rings clear through their bond. 

" _No_ . It's not. I'm done. I'm done losing people. I did what everyone wanted. What needed to be done. What the Force wanted. I won't lose you. I _can't_ lose you." 

She has no words for the other thought in her. She doesn't need them. Her intent is clear in the Force and impossible to misunderstand. _I did what you wanted now give me what I need. Don't I deserve to be happy too? You gave us each other don't take him from me._ She has lost so much to the Force, to destiny. 

Her chance at childhood, taken from her by one man's - if you could call that creature that might have once been Emperor Palpatine a man - ambition and delusions of a grand legacy. 

Her mentors, all three of them, lost to the ravages of time and destiny and a man so at war with himself that his hurt rang through the Force like a scream at times. A man that, in his heart, might never really have outgrown the scared boy with too much power and the looming weight of a two-fold family legacy on his shoulders. 

The very man dying in her arms right now. 

The man that is so much her own it almost hurts. 

The man that has ripped her from death's cold grasp. 

The man she loves. 

Ben. 

_You cannot have him_ she wants to scream _he's mine_. 

She clings to him with all her might, as if she could stop his death by simply holding on and never letting go, as if she could stop time. But she can't and she can't heal him without reversing their situation, the very last of her life burned up in that final battle against the Sith. She wants to hate the _thing_ at fault for this, but she can't. Can't sully what might be her last moments with Ben like that. 

  
  


Power trickles into her, slowly, haltingly, like a runlet and there's a voice in her mind, unobtrusive, quiet almost, supportive. _Yes_ . She recognizes the voice somehow. Though she has never come face to face with the owner, something in her _knows_ . A second joins in, strengthens the runlet into a rivulet. _Yes_. 

As if these first ones have opened a floodgate power rushes in, filling her with new life, new strength. And a chorus of voices reverberates in her mind. 

**_Yes_. **

It is with a smile on her lips she leans in, kisses Ben once more, pours her life and love and the Force into him, makes herself a conduit for the power of generations upon generations of Jedi - no, of Force sensitives light and dark and grey. Light seems to explode around them and Rey feels like she is weightless, like they are defying gravity but she can't bring herself to mind. Ben's grip on her has strengthened again, he is returning that kiss, life and the force passing between them like the ebb and flow of tides, like binary stars in orbit around each other, reaching out with power and love, solar flares in the darkness of space. 

Around them the battle rages, the planet crumbles and Star Destroyers burn but none of it touches them. They are cloaked in the Force, in the power of generations upon generations of Force Users before them, floating in that arena as everything around them crumbles. 

Their descent back to the worldly, to consciousness is slow, unhurried. Still a little dazed, as the Force Users of pasts distant and recent retreat, they behold the carnage around them. The Sith are no more. And this time it will last.

The ground shaking beneath their feet is what finally stirs them into action, reminds them of the planet crumbling around them. Rey grabs the lightsabers with the Force and they run. 


	2. Flight

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> After the Force Users past helped Rey save Ben, the two now have to make it off a crumpling planet and to safety.

It is not until they reach the X-Wing that Rey realizes their newest conundrum. 

"One seat." Ben looks at her in askance. 

"The T-65B X-Wing has only one seat, plus an unprotected astromech socket"

Now, he is smirking at her. It makes Rey wonder what he must have been like as a mischievous teen. His next words cement the image of the cocky ace pilot flirt she knows he never had been but in a kinder world likely would have. 

"Oh, two people can fit into the cockpit. It's a tight squeeze, slows the fighter down quite a bit and makes maneuvering a pest, but it's possible"

She can't help herself, she giggles. She can't remember the last time she did that. Has she ever done that? Ben's grin turns into a genuine smile.

"Let's get out of here" She smiles in return.

Ben was right. It _is_ a tight squeeze. And while the seating arrangement was a foregone conclusion - there is no way to fit Ben's tall, long-limber frame into the tiny cockpit if she's in the pilot's seat - who got to take the controls was a squabble cut short by only by a tremor in the ground, as if the Force was reminding them to _get the hell out of there_. 

Somehow they have ended up with Ben flying, his long arms reaching around Rey for the controls - and his arm brushing against her back every so often when the left side of the controls jabs her in the side on a turn. Rey can't help but grumble about it, much to Ben's amusement as they clear the atmosphere. 

"Rey? You there?" Poe's voice through the comm system breaks the comfortable silence that has settled between them. Rey reaches up to activate the speaker so Poe could hear them.

"I'm here." 

"Thank the Force. You made it out of there safe?" She smiled brightly at Ben as she answered.

"Yeah, we're fine. Close call, but we made it."

"You can't imagine how glad I am to… Wait, did you say we? Who the kriff is with you? You're in an X-Wing, and without an astromech, might I add."

Rey almost has to laugh again at the sheer bewilderment in Poe's voice. Before she can say anything though, Ben has already started speaking.

"Just tell us where to fly this tincan, will you?" The dry delivery makes her grin widely.

"Rey" Poe's voice sounds strained "is that the kriffing _leader of the First Order_ with you?"

"No" Rey answers almost flippantly, still riding the last of the high of their narrow escape from death's doorstep. "Just Ben Solo."

Ben squeezes her side affectionately at her words, leading her to rest her forehead against his temple in a way that only mildly crams her neck in the tiny space of the cockpit that was _really_ not designed for more than one person.

"But he's right Poe" she adds, before her friend can get a word in edgewise. "Just tell us the closest place to land this thing, it's really cramped in here. We can argue later." Poe laughs, but sends them the specifics for a hyperspace route to a meet-up place. 

Not exactly protocol, but spy-prevention seems rather unimportant in light of the battle they just won. Rey knows though that the last word isn't spoken on her and Ben yet. But she isn't worried. Not about Poe, at least. He can be swayed by logic and arguments, he's not blinded by idealism. Chewie, of course, won't be a problem either. The Wookie has been aware of the situation between her and Ben the longest and he has never judged her. No, who worries Rey is Finn. Her first friend is idealistic to a fault. And he hates Ben on a personal level.

 _It's gonna be okay_. Ben's voice in her mind his comforting. To know that he's there. That he's alive. That she's not alone. It hasn't really set in yet, the gravity of all that happened on Exegol. She grew up a scavenger, all alone on Jakku. Learning to compartmentalize, to push those things away until she could manage to find someplace remotely safe has been a necessity of survival. But she knows the break down will come. When the rush of battle and danger wears off, no amount of compartmentalization will be able to hold it back. But she's not there yet. So she just hums non-commitantly and adjusts herself on his lap to lean her head against his shoulder, allows her eyes to droop. 

Ben is whispering sweet nothings to her as hyperspace makes the galaxy seem like a blur of light around them. 

Their calm reverie is disturbed by the comm system.

"You realize I can still hear you, right?" Poe's voice is strained with embarrassment and held back laughter. Rey can feel her face heating and turns to hide it against Ben's chest. Who has the audacity to chuckle.

"Then don't listen, Dameron" It is a bit strange to hear the usually so brooding man quip back at Poe via comms. It is stranger still – and certainly a sign of how absurd this entire situation is – to hear the Resistance pilot quip back.

"Shut it Solo. Are you still reading sappy love poems in your spare time?" Rey bites her lip. Now would be a bad time to laugh.

"Shut. Up." The bite in Ben's words should make them menacing. Instead Rey gets the distinct feeling that Ben's brand of humour is something he might have inherited from his parents. The comm system goes silent after Ben reaches around her to flick a switch.

"Blessed peace at last." Laughter fills the tiny X-Wing cockpit.

"So" Rey asks once she's calmed down enough to talk "sappy love poems, huh?" She doesn't need to look at his face to know he's rolling his eyes.

"Get some rest, sweetheart" is the only reply she gets. With a smile, Rey snuggles against him and allows herself to drift off to sleep.


	3. Interlude - The One where I pull a Breaking Dawn pt. 2 on the ending

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Exactly what it says on the tin.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes, I am in fact still bitter about that ending. The point of dualism is not so that you can kill one of them! That would be like cutting off 1 wing of a plane and then expect it to fly. There's a reason there's two of those, you idiots.
> 
> No, I have not abandoned this. And I won't. This will end, eventually, and it will end as any good fairytale does and until that point, I will keep coming back to this. But it's going to take a while.  
> So take this December-written interlude until I can wrangle the next chapter into existence. 
> 
> Also, online classes sort of really suck at teaching.  
> Stay safe everyone.

He was dying, fading from her arms and there was nothing she could do, to burned out from that final battle to even live on her own strength. He had given his life for hers. And now she was alone. Again. It couldn't end like this. She had done everything she could, everything the Force had demanded of her, had brought down the Sith at last. Why then, why did it take him from her? Why give her this man, her soulmate, quite literally her other half, only to take him away as soon as her task was done? Why take him but let her live? It wasn't fair. Her heart ached and she knew it would never stop, never abate. They had been like binary stars, forever in orbit around each other, intrinsically bound. And now, he was gone and it left her off kilter. Alone. She hated being alone. She'd been alone all her life. Alone on Jakku. Alone on Ach-to, her second time around. Alone when she came down here. Alone in the aftermath, her beloved dead and gone. Nothing good had ever come of her being alone. 

Alone. Alone. Alone. 

She left quietly, when everyone was still preoccupied with the victory celebrations. She went to Tatooine alone. Her aching heart couldn't stand the company. She'd live quietly here, where no-one would think to look for her. At least for a while. Until the bleeding wounds on her heart had scabbed over. There were no expectations here. She was alone. And she hated it. Hated that she lost Ben. Hated that her heart couldn't bear even the presence of her friends. Hated being alone. 

Alone. She was alone now, wasn't she? 

None of her friends knew where she was. 

Even the Force felt somewhat muted here. As if it was hesitant to reach out to her, but would be there immediately if she reached for it. 

She was well and truly alone now. 

As her story had begun, so it would end, she guessed. 

Alone. 

Alone. 

Alone. 

With a gasp, Rey woke up. It was dark still, and only the bustle of the wildlife in the night could be heard. It took a moment for her to realize where she was. When she was. This wasn't the Emperor's arena. This wasn't the Final Battle. This wasn't even the base on that jungle planet were she had seen Leia for the last time. This was Yavin. They hadn't been here long. Just a short stop on their way to… To Mandalore. They had been on their way to Mandalore because there was rumored to be a chance of the Mandalorians turning openly against the First Order. And, as Leia had explained, the Mandalorians had a long and sometimes sordid history of being a warrior people. Weapons, fighters, possibly even ships, if they could win Mandalore they might just win this war. Or that was what they had thought. When they had arrived, the First Order had already been there, Kylo Ren had already made nice with the Mandalorians, using lessons learned at his mother's knee probably. But what happened then? This dream - or was it a vision? It had felt so real. She could almost still feel the heart ache just by thinking on it. A shift in the air made her look up. "Rey?"

* * *

Dying felt strange, Ben decided. It didn't even hurt and surely there were worse ways to go than dying in the arms of the woman you loved because you saved her life. He couldn't really think of any - his past misdeeds excluded - but that didn't matter. He hated that he had to leave Rey. He had promised her she'd never be alone again and here he was, about to break that promise. He wanted to tell her he was sorry, reach out to Touch her one last time but it was too late already and then he was gone. 

He woke much like he always did after a nightmare. Sweat-drenched and panting, his heart beating a mile an hour and his sense of time and space addled. But even as his racing heart calmed and his senses returned to him in full, the time and space aspect seemed to remain addled. He wasn't dying in that blasted arena anymore. He seemed to be in his quarters, the one he had moved into after taking on the mantle of Supreme Leader. His reforged helmet was nowhere to be seen so he had to be sometime before the call of Palpatine had led him to the uncharted regions. 

Ben was no stranger to the Force, nor to Force visions. Though this was the most far-reaching and the clearest he had ever known. He sensed confusion and a mild panic over the almost-dormant bond to Rey. From the state of the bond he'd say it was a month or two still until Palpatine would make himself known. It wasn't the raw, hurt thing anymore it had been after their fight on the Supremacy but it also was far from the bone deep connection they had flung so wide open in that desert. Feeling Rey's turmoil, he reached out tentatively. There was no way to know, whether she had shared his vision or not and the last thing he wanted was to truly frighten her. He kept his voice deliberately gentle, almost submissive. "Rey?"


End file.
